Colorado Heart (9781101612026) Read Free Page B

died sometime the winter before last and no one had even realized it until the spring thaw when his cattle showed up mixed in with Jake’s. Jake had gone looking and found him sitting in a rocking chair by his fireplace. He’d been dead for a while. They’d buried him under a pine and sent a letter to a daughter-in-law, whose name and address Jake had found scribbled in an old Bible. The place had been empty for well over a year. Someone would show up eventually to claim it, or else it would be sold off. It was the way things were out here.
    â€œStop right there!” a gruff voice called out.
    Jake cursed himself for a fool for getting so lost in his musings that he didn’t see anyone coming their way. He looked up the trail and didn’t recognize the appaloosa or the rider who was currently pointing the business end of a Spencer rifle at his head. The rider was small and new horses turned up all the time. Could it possibly be one of Jim’s older twin boys? But surely the twins would recognize him. And why would they be robbing him?
    Jake raised his hands. He kept a hold on Libby’s lead. He heard Dan and Randy pull up behind him.
    â€œBoss?” Randy asked.
    â€œLet me see what’s going on,” Jake said. He knew the three of them could take whoever it was but he wanted to avoid bloodshed if possible. It was too pretty of a night to have to shoot someone, even if they were stupid enough to try and steal from him.
    â€œTurn loose of that donkey,” the rider said. The voice wasn’t as gruff this time. It was a boy trying to disguise himself by speaking lower than natural. Then the words sunk in to Jake’s mind.
    â€œWait.” Jake tried to keep a straight face. “Are you trying to steal my donkey?” He stretched out Libby’s lead. “This donkey?”
    The rider cocked the rifle to show he meant business. “No. You are stealing my donkey.”
    â€œWhat the hell?”
    â€œWatch your language. And let her go.”
    â€œI think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding,” Jake started.
    The rifle raised a notch. “I’m guessing you understand
this
,
don’t you?”
    â€œYou want us to do something?” Dan said quietly from behind him.
    â€œI got it,” Jake responded. “The last thing I want to do is kill some fool kid.” He raised his hands higher so the idiot with the rifle could see that he wasn’t holding a weapon, and with a squeeze of his knees, Skip moved forward, slowly, with Libby walking along by his side.
    The rider, whoever it was, wore a coat that was way too big for him. It reached from neck to ankles and was made of heavy wool. His wide-brimmed, flat-top Stetson was pulled low over his face, and a heavy knit scarf wrapped around his neck, covering any hint of skin. The rider was so laden down with trying to stay warm that Jake knew he could take him out before he had a chance to twitch his finger on the trigger.
    â€œTake it easy,” Jake said as they approached. “I’m bringing the donkey, although I don’t know why anyone in the world would want to steal the fool thing. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
    â€œLike I said before. It’s my donkey.”
    The rider sat on a small rise in the road. The moon was directly overhead and his features were lost in the shadow of his hat, but the gloved hands on the rifle were small, albeit steady, and the tips of the boots that stuck out from beneath the folds of the coat barely showed.
    â€œWhat are you? Twelve?” Jake asked as Skip stopped about a head’s length from the appaloosa.
    â€œWhat are you?” the thief said after he cleared his throat. “Stupid?”
    Jake tapped his heels and Skip charged full bore into the appaloosa. The appaloosa reared and Jake wrenched the rifle from the rider’s hands as he tumbled backward from the saddle.
    Libby hee-hawed and kicked out